Two labour unions are trying to organize employees at Toyota's assembly plants in Cambridge and Woodstock again after the company added more work and cut holiday time.

Two labour unions are trying to organize employees at Toyota's assembly plants in Cambridge and Woodstock again after the company added more work and cut holiday time.

The International Association of Machinists and the Canadian Auto Workers said Friday that they have renewed efforts to become bargaining agents for about 4,000 production workers in Cambridge and another 1,000 in Woodstock.

Toyota has also scheduled extra production for three Saturdays during the next few months and there are rumblings of a lot more in the new year, plus a pending speed-up of the assembly line.

The Cambridge plant is assembling more Corolla compacts because of the closing of a Californai plant.

"Overtime is good security and everybody enjoys the money, but when it steadily takes more time away from your family, it hurts," said Lee Sperduti, a veteran assembly line team member and organizer for the machinists union.

"There is no amount of money that can make up for lost family time."

Toyota production workers currently earn an average of about $34 an hour building the Corolla, Matrix crossover and Lexus RX350 sport utility vehicles in Cambridge and the RAV4 sport ute in Woodstock.

Sperduti added the moves follow Toyota's decision to freeze wages earlier this year and force workers to pay more for some benefits because of a deep industry downturn that has affected most automakers.

John Aman, the CAW's director of organizing, said a union committee is signing workers to union membership cards.

"There are serious concerns about what is occurring in the Toyota plants," he noted.

Toyota officials could not be reached for comment on the renewal in union organizing activity.

Workers at General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group have accepted wage freezes and reductions in benefits in Canada this year so the companies could qualify for billions of dollars in government financial aid to keep them alive.

The new push to organize workers comes after several unsuccessful attempts, including one by the machinists union earlier this year.

The union withdrew an application for a vote at the Cambridge plant in March after Toyota employment figures showed organizers did not sign up enough workers to qualify for a vote.

Under Ontario labour law, a union can hold a vote for bargaining recognition if 40 per cent of workers in a plant sign membership cards. More than 50 per cent of workers would then need to decide if they wanted a union in a vote supervised by the Ontario government.

The machinists union started its drive in 2007 after the CAW made several previous attempts in the past decade.

No union has won bargaining rights at a Japanese-based automaker in North America since they began building vehicles on the continent more than 25 years ago.

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